The most famous strikeout in baseball history isn’t the flailing image of Reggie Jackson against Bob Welch in the 1978 World Series or even the gazing setback for Dale Mitchell that sealed Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

Rather, it still belongs to mighty Casey, who came to bat in the imagination of poet Ernest L. Thayer in 1888, only to take two called strikes as Flynn and Blake waited nervously in scoring position. Casey being a slugger, there would be no shortening up, no slapping a two-run single to the opposite field.

As Mudville and the rest of the literate world has long since learned, Casey swung from his heels at the third pitch he saw and, of course, struck out.
These days, it happens all the time.

“We’ve all seen it,” Twins general manager Terry Ryan says. “There’s too many strikeouts, and quite a few of them are looking, which is even more alarming to me.”

That’s why it’s probably not fair to pick on Reynolds, although he did average 209 strikeouts while leading the majors in that category in three consecutive seasons (2008-10) and the AL in 2011. That included the single-season record of 223 in 2009, smashing his own mark from the previous year.

The run also included 211 in 2010, when his 97-loss Arizona Diamondbacks fanned 1,529 times, setting a major league team record.

That mark came crashing down in 2013, when the youthful Houston Astros fanned 1,535 times on their way to 111 losses. First baseman Chris Carter, a reserve on the 2012 Oakland A’s club that had ranked second all-time, led the way for Houston with a majors-high 212 strikeouts.

Those A’s, a 94-win playoff team, have already been bumped down the list, thanks not only to the Astros but the 2013 Minnesota Twins, who fanned 1,430 times despite failing to produce a single 130-whiff man.

How did they do that? By fielding 11 players with 80 or more strikeouts, including six-time All-Star catcher Joe Mauer, who notched his career-high 89th strikeout just before suffering a concussion that would cost him the season’s final 39 games.

Late Twins Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett played 12 seasons and never struck out 100 times. Fellow Hall member Paul Molitor, recently named to Minnesota’s coaching staff, played 21 seasons and struck out more than 81 times just once.

That came in 1982, when Molitor fanned 93 times for the Milwaukee Brewers. Then again, he had 751 plate appearances that year.

“I don’t know if there’s no stigma, but some people are willing to look the other way more than we used to when it comes to strikeouts,” Molitor says. “As long as it’s translating into run-production numbers, it’s more acceptable.”

Pedro Alvarez (AP Photo)

A variety of reasons have been set forth for this — everything from the dawn of steroid testing in 2003 to increasing bullpen specialization to a salary-arbitration system hat rewards power numbers and overlooks offensive strikeouts.

“I don’t know if it’s the mentality of the players, but they’re definitely not as concerned about it,” Molitor says. “Strikeouts are part of the game. We all know that, but they should be somewhat connected to what are you trying to gain by striking out.”

Starting with the 2006 season, total strikeouts in the majors have climbed each year. In 2013, the 30 big-league teams combined for 36,710 whiffs, nearly 300 more than the record total from the previous year, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Eighteen teams struck out at least 1,200 times in 2013, when the average was 1,224. Through 2005, the maximum number of teams with that many strikeouts in any given season had been two.

As for Reynolds, he struck out only 154 times due to decreased playing time with the Indians and Yankees. However, his six-year hold on the single-season record could be in jeopardy if this trend holds.

Bobby Bonds, by comparison, held the season strikeout mark for 35 years (1969-2003) before Adam Dunn came along to strike out 195 times in 2004. Just two men, Jake Stahl (128) and Vince DiMaggio (134), held the mark from 1910 through 1955.

Ryan Howard took the record to 199 in 2007 before Reynolds cracked the 200 barrier one year later, which sort of makes him the Sir Roger Bannister of whiffs.

Particularly galling to Ryan and other old-school baseball people is the refusal of most modern players to change their approach once they get to two strikes. Either non-sluggers will continue to swing their hardest regardless of situation or they will take a borderline pitch for a called third strike as they continue to exhibit patience until it hurts. Where have you gone, productive out?

“How about taking a whack at a first-pitch fastball strike?” Ryan says. “That will fix some of it. We all talk about on-base percentage and all that stuff that’s very prevalent in the game nowadays. Sometimes we’re getting to a point where we’re trying to get deep in counts when we probably should be taking a swing, especially when you’re up against a guy that’s got a history of throwing nothing but strikes.”

Walks have declined for four straight seasons, in part because pitchers have improved their command even as their average velocities have climbed. A strikeout/walk ratio that hovered at 2/1 from 2005-09 has widened considerably to 2.53 in 2013.

Adam Dunn (AP Photo)

“We all can see that this guy walks 2.1 per nine (innings),” Ryan says. “There’s a chance he’s going to throw a fastball strike or some kind of strike early, because that’s all he ever does. Maybe it’s a lack of aggressiveness. Something’s got to give.”

While the Oakland A’s won their division in 2012 while leading the majors in strikeouts, putting the ball in play still appears to have some merit in terms of team success.

Of the last 10 World Series participants, just one has finished higher than ninth in regular-season strikeouts in their respective league.

That team? The 2013 Boston Red Sox, who ranked fourth in the A.L. with 1,308 strikeouts, then opened the A.L.C.S. with 31 strikeouts in their first 16 2/3 innings before David Ortiz’s epic grand slam snapped them out of their funk and sent them hurtling toward a third World Series title in 10 years.

“Guys that are good hitters and hit for a high average should probably be striking out 10 percent of the time,” Molitor says. “We’re seeing too many 25-30-percent rates with guys who supposedly should hit for a decent average. That’s not going to be acceptable.”

Especially with wave after wave of young power pitchers blasting their way into the game.

“I think we may need to rethink, person-to-person as much as collectively, our philosophy when it comes to hitting with two strikes,” Molitor says. “We need to consider what situations call for (risking) the strikeout (that comes at) such a high cost to a team offensively. We have to try to find a way to minimize strikeouts before this epidemic gets any worse.”

Joyless Mudville knows the feeling.

Mike Berardino covers the Minnesota Twins for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This content originally appeared in the Sporting News 2014 Baseball Yearbook. To order a copy, click here.